Flickering Nights
by asagohan-no-bento
Summary: It's nights like these where Doumeki lies awake...waiting for him. DouWata. Slight!lime and spoilers for recent xxxHolic chapters 200-204. Read and Review please and thanks


A/N: Hey guys. Life has been really really crazy lately, so I found some odd sort of comfort writing some DouWata, and thus. Uhm, somehow during the course of this short little drabble/one-shot the tense changed, and I am seriously incapable of finding the source of it and changing the rest of the story to fix it. It's not that big of a deal, but it may bug some of you grammar!natzis out there. (and I mean that in the least offensive way possible) Anyways, enjoy.

Warning: DouWata make-out (it's not very graphic or anything, don't worry); slight!SPOILERS for the most recent xxxHolic chapters (like....200-204, something like that.)

**Flickering Nights:**

--

And so here we were.

It had been one of those nights where I could tell that he had been crying.

Well, maybe not crying physically, more of a reminiscing, of a mourning, than actual tears.

There was just that feeling around him, an untouchable emptiness that scared me to death.

So, of course, the only thing I could manage to say to him was: '_You look a mess.'_

He could barely muster a glare and it broke my heart.

There was something so lacking there, something that I knew was never going to come back.

Something that only Yuko had that was his, something that not even Kunogi could bring back in him, despite how much they claimed to love each other.

No matter how much they say it, they both know the truth of their circumstance.

I'm just the middle-man between them, just the one who gives them a sense of seeing the other.

They're finally able to love each other, and I know they do, _so much so that it hurts_.

It was one of those nights where after all the drinks, the passing insults and delicious food, that I found myself awake.

Waiting for him like I always did.

He had retired for bed a good hour or so ago, as had I, but still, I lie awake in my futon, staring at the ceiling, waiting, _anticipating._

We've been playing this game for so long, this dance around what we really want to say, what it is that we really want from one another.

I'm not sure that I actually know what that even is anymore.

And I highly doubt that he does either.

I finally hear those footsteps, light and airy, like he's not really there.

I can feel my heart clench at the thought.

_'What if I'm too late?'_

I still hadn't made my decision...

That damn egg.

That fruitless egg that wouldn't bare anything, just like our relationship.

Then what was the _point?_

The door to the room he lets me use slides open and I can hear the elongated sound of his breathing, like he is blowing out a wisp of smoke, though I know that the pipe isn't on him.

He knows how much I hate it.

It's not _him_, he's just compensating for her.

And he knows that.

He knows that I know.

And I know that he knows.

I sit up as he fully enters the room and approaches me.

"Can't sleep?" I ask with the same tone I know he hates.

He nods slowly, finally taking a seat next to me and pulling the covers around him.

He rests his head against my shoulder and now I know that he _has_ been crying.

The remaining dampness staining his cheeks goes straight into my shirt.

A silence drifts between us.

But not that casual bitterness and dislike we always seem to express towards one another.

A comfortable silence, one that we've slowly been crafting over the years.

"I spoke with Haruka-san."

"Hn." I responded. Somehow, despite all my attempts to correct my 'speech mannerisms', I still revert back to my old ways, no matter how many times he protests.

But now isn't one of those times.

This is when he accepts me for what I am, and is openly okay with that.

"He seems really concerned with something."

"Probably with you."

I can feel his lips turn into a frown simply from how his face shifts against my shoulder.

He would probably be glaring if it was in any other situation.

Another silence.

"Why?" He'll ask.

"Why not?" I'll responded.

And we find ourselves here again.

He'll sigh, then bury his face in my neck.

Then he'll sigh again lacing those delicate arms around my shoulders.

I can never tell if I'm genuinely surprised when I feel those full lips on mine.

But I know that I stop really caring when I realize how much I _need_ and _want_ them there. Everything I've been working for, holding out on, suddenly makes sense and I wouldn't trade anything for this moment of clarity.

Not for some stupid dream with my grandfather,

Not for some destined meeting with a witch who was already dead long before I had met her,

Not for some dysfunctional relationship where I'm stuck in a tug-o-war between the only two people I really care about.

Our exchange of lips becomes more fierce and I can feel those legs move to straddle my hips, those nimble hands tangling in my hair.

He just taste so incredibly _good_, unlike anything I could ever imagine.

I'm slowly losing my head, any grip I had on self-control.

I manage to push him away, but not without a few stolen kisses in the mix.

Somehow, despite the darkness around us, I can see his eyes so clearly, the sharp blue in one and the dulled, muted-gold in the other.

He knows something is different, that something has changed and that I'm not just going to be okay with this arrangement anymore.

Unconsciously my thumb traces those moist lips from where my hand is cradling that heated cheek.

"Wha-what's wrong-"

"I can't." I cut him off. His voice is just so breathless and _lost_, I can't take it.

I kiss him again, but pull away just as quickly.

"What're you doing?" He asks, but there isn't the habitual anger. Just uncertain curiosity.

My hand cupping his cheek moves to run through his hair.

It hasn't grown an inch since that day.

"I can't do this anymore. The pretense, the lies."

I look into those eyes, really looked into them, trying to figure out what it was going on in that head of his.

I never really knew anymore.

"B-but I-"

I can't handle to hear his voice like that.

"I'm deceiving you like this," I gesture towards us, with Watanuki still sitting in my lap, "there's nothing between us."

He gave me this desperate look, the one of a man holding onto the edge of the world with a string.

"But I lov-"

I can't handle it.

"You don't _love _me!"

His body stiffens.

"You love _her._ Not me. And if you _do_ then you owe it to her to love _only_ her."

I sigh, my thumb caressing his temple.

I couldn't stop myself.

"She loves you back just as much, and I'm tired of it."

"What do you mean?"

I could feel my usually endless patience suddenly drain from me completely and I felt like I was going to lose it.

I griped those slender shoulders firmly, giving him a firm shake.

"If you really care for Kunogi as much as you say you do, then _love her_. Fully. You can't like this."

He looks at me and those intoxicating eyes widen.

"I'm selfish. I want you to myself, I can't contribute to this anymo-"

It seems that he had other plans in mind.

He captured my lips again, straining with all his might against my restraining hands on his wrists.

We glided against each other and despite my reservations I couldn't help but get caught up in him again.

This time he was the one who pulled away.

One of the smuggest looks on his face that I had ever seen.

"You stupid oaf."

He kissed me again, tracing my lips with his.

"You're all I have left and I love _you_ for it."

I want to yell at him, for tangling me up in this web of his, but I can't manage to do it.

So we'll meet again on one of these nights.

We're I'll try to resist, regain some definition of control.

Fail.

And then realize that I don't really mind.

Because one day those words of his will be true.

One day Yuko will return that part of him and he'll be whole again.

One day I'll be all that he has.

And then I'll have him all to myself.


End file.
